


A Long Way To Fall

by labellelunaclaire



Series: AUgust 2020 [5]
Category: Hadestown - Mitchell
Genre: AU-gust 2020, Alternate Universe - Post-Apocalypse, F/M, Zombie Apocalypse, allusions to our current global situation but it’s not really
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-05
Updated: 2020-08-05
Packaged: 2021-03-05 23:48:05
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,024
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25723858
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/labellelunaclaire/pseuds/labellelunaclaire
Summary: Day 5 — Post-ApocalypseEurydice finds herself in a bar after the end of the world.
Relationships: Eurydice/Orpheus (Hadestown)
Series: AUgust 2020 [5]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1860763
Comments: 2
Kudos: 15
Collections: AUgust 2020





	A Long Way To Fall

**Author's Note:**

> First ever Hadestown fanfic! Woo! I love Hadestown so much. Just, everything about it. So I’m excited to get to write a few AUs for it this month!

Eurydice was a good climber.

She was small and lithe, strong and flexible. Her hands were rough with callouses from years spent grasping the rough bark of unforgiving trees. One wrong move could be your last. So she made sure to never make a wrong move. In climbing or in the rest of her life.

She preferred to live in the trees versus on the ground. She was far less likely to be attacked by either the living or the dead up high. All she needed was to find a sturdy enough tree to string up her hammock and safety net.

Sometimes, though, she needed to be on solid ground, even if she felt safer in the trees.

She had heard about a bar where the survivors of the virus gathered. They called it The Underground, and it was run by a woman called Persephone, who brewed the beers and wines herself.

Best not to ask too many questions about the contents of the booze.

Eurydice pulled her mask over her face. It was just common courtesy these days, if you knew you were going to be around other people. Unlike the early days of the virus, when people didn’t understand what was going on or how it was spreading, everyone knew which precautions to take to stay healthy and human. Those who didn’t were already gone to the hoard.

The Underground was a dark, haphazardly built building. It was a miracle of the gods that it was somehow still standing. But, Eurydice supposed, people liked their booze, so she was sure there was always someone who was willing to lend a hand to keep the place from collapsing. The lights flickered occasionally. It was difficult to keep up with electric needs when there was no power grid anymore, and no one was making replacement parts for what was still working.

“Wine,” she said to the woman behind the bar. “And something to eat.”

“Haven’t seen you here before,” the woman responded, pouring dark wine from a dusty bottle into a highball glass. “Just passing through?”

“I drift,” Eurydice said, pushing up her mask just high enough to take a drink from the cup. The wine was sweet and astringent. She couldn’t even begin to place what fruit it was made from. “Wherever the wind takes me.”

“I’m Persephone,” the woman told her, turning around to a gently simmering pot on a fire behind her and filling up a bowl with some sort of stew. “Have a name, drifter?”

“Eurydice,” she responded, taking the bowl.

“Good to meet you, Eurydice,” Persephone said warmly, adjusting the green mask on her face. “In need of a place to sleep tonight?”

“I prefer to sleep in the trees.”

“Smart girl,” Persephone nodded. “Harder for the living or the dead to get you up there.”

“That’s the idea.”

Eurydice looked around while she ate her stew, which was thick and hot, loaded with vegetables and meat so tender that she couldn’t identify what it was. Probably didn’t want to know.

It was fairly quiet in the bar. Just a few other patrons nursing their glasses here and there at wobbly looking tables and mismatched chairs. In the corner, a red bandana tied around his face, was a young man, roughly her age, sitting on a stool and quietly strumming on a guitar that looked like it had seen better days.

Hadn’t they all.

“Who’s he?” she asked Persephone.

Persephone looked where Eurydice was. “Oh, that’s Orpheus,” she said. “He cleans up around here. Helps me bottle the booze and clean the kills and tend the garden in exchange for a place to stay. Good kid.”

“I haven’t seen anyone play an instrument in… years. Not since Before.”

“He’s an odd thing,” Persephone agreed, grabbing a rag from her belt and wiping down the counter. “Won’t give up that guitar, no matter what.”

As if he could tell that they were talking about him, Orpheus looked up and locked eyes with Eurydice. His cheeks moved under his bandana — a smile she could tell was there even under the fabric.

He stopped playing the guitar and stood, pushing the instrument until it rested on his back, and walked over to the bar.

“Need a drink, Orpheus?” Persephone asked him, pulling out a glass.

“No, ma’am. I’m fine for now,” he told her as he nervously clutched at his guitar strap and looked at Eurydice. He held out his hand. “I’m Orpheus.”

Eurydice looked at his hand for a moment. Such greetings were old fashioned, solidly from Before. No one introduced themselves this way anymore.

But she found herself taking his hand, noting how strangely soft his palms were, though the tips of his fingers were thickly calloused from the strings of his guitar.

“I’m Eurydice,” she told him. “Nice guitar. It’s been a long time since I’ve seen one.”

She saw the tips of his cheeks — the parts that weren’t covered by the bandana — flush pink, and the boy nervously shifted from one foot to the other.

“Music is important. It’s… healing,” he said. “I think more people should try to keep up with the old ways.”

“Have to stay alive first,” she pointed out.

“Do you want to stay with me tonight?” he blurted out.

She should have walked away right then. She should have rejected the boy and left for her treetop camp.

But his forward question intrigued her. His strange optimism drew her in.

“Sure,” she found herself saying. “Why not?”

The world was full of death and destruction. Society had practically crumbled. The dead walked around, preying on the living. In the end, all humanity had was… each other.

Eurydice felt safest in the trees, even if one wrong move could mean the end. There was another type of falling that frightened her much more than a fall from a height. But she faced her fears every day. They all did now, the survivors of the plague that decimated life as they’d once known it.

Falling for Orpheus would be a long way down from her comfort zone. But she was willing to take the risk.

**Author's Note:**

> A bit quick and with less worldbuilding than I like, but when you’re writing 31 AUs in a month, they can’t all be masterpieces, I suppose! Still, I hope it was enjoyable!
> 
> For once, my fiancée didn’t beta this one before I posted it, since I wrote it in the two hours before bed.


End file.
